Pakistan is a dynamic country of over 191 million people. It boasts a rapidly growing economy, is a nuclear power and is home to a number of Nobel and Oscar winning scientists, artists, professionals and thinkers. Sadly Pakistan is also a country with one of the highest infant mortality rates (71/1000 live births) across the world. According to a ‘Save the Children Fund’ report Pakistan has one of the highest ‘First day Mortality Rates’ globally. This is largely attributed to poor in-labor care of the mother and lack of trained personnel for care and

resuscitation of the newborn.

Helping Babies Breathe HBB is a globally recognized program developed by the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics). It teaches health workers in low resource settings the basic life saving steps of newborn resuscitation. The support of APPNE and IDSP we started a HBB program to train midwives that work and serve in the remotest parts of rural Baluchistan and Interior Sindh Pakistan. In addition to the skill and training we also equipped these mid wives newborn resuscitation kits. Through IDSP we recently conducted our 4th refresher course on new born resuscitation and HBB. So far we have enrolled and trained total 78 Midwifes that are from 10 districts of Baluchistan and Sindh ( Dado ,Sibbi,Quetta ,Lasbella, Gawadar, Turbat Awaran Nosky Panjgoor Zhob ). Using the skills given through this program our community IDSP midwifes and LHVs have saved 7 babies in under a year and have improved the care of countless others. Are goals are to create master trainers of HBB and also provide resuscitation manikins at the district level so we can do quarterly refresher courses. We are also trying to ensure uniform distribution of resuscitation equipment to midwives and will be collecting data to measure outcomes.

OUR HOPE IS TO LOWER OUR INFANT MORTALITY RATES AND IMPROVE SURVIVAL AND HEALTH OF OUR CHILDREN ONE BABY AT A TIME ONE BREATH AT A TIME…..